Good ev’nin’, Mis’ Priest. I jest stepped in to tell you Good-bye. Yes, it’s all over, All my things is packed And every last one o’ them boxes Is on Bradley’s team Bein’ hauled over to th’ station. No, I ain’t goin’ back agin. I’m stoppin’ over to French’s fer to-night, And goin’ down fust train in th’ mornin’. Yes, it do seem kinder queer Not to be goin’ to see Cherry’s Orchard no more, But Land Sakes! When a change’s comin’, Why, I allus say it can’t come too quick. Now, that’s real kind of you, Your doughnuts is always so tasty. Yes, I’m goin’ to Chicago, To my niece, She’s married to a fine man, hardware business, And doin’ real well, she tells me. Lizzie’s be’n at me to go out ther fer the longest while. She ain’t got no kith nor kin to Chicago, you know. She’s rented me a real nice little flat, Same house as hers, And I’m goin’ to try that city livin’ folks say’s so pleasant. Oh, yes, he was real generous, Paid me a sight of money fer the Orchard, I told him ’twouldn’t yield nothin’ but stones, But he ain’t farmin’ it. Lor’, no, Mis’ Priest, He’s jest took it to set and look at the view. Maybe he wouldn’t be so stuck on the view Ef he’d seed it every mornin’ and night for forty year Same’s I have. I dessay it’s pretty enough, But it’s so pressed into me I c’n see’t with my eyes shet. No. I ain’t cold, Mis’ Priest, Don’t shet th’ door. I’ll be all right in a minit. But I ain’t a mite sorry to leave that view. Well, maybe ’tis queer to feel so, And maybe ’tisn’t. My! But that tea’s revivin’. Old things ain’t always pleasant things, Mis’ Priest. No, no, I don’t cal’late on comin’ back, That’s why I’d ruther be to Chicago, Boston’s too near. It ain’t cold, Mis’ Priest, It’s jest my thoughts. I ain’t sick, only— Mis’ Priest, ef you’ve nothin’ ter take yer time, And have a mind to listen, There’s somethin’ I’d like ter speak about. I ain’t never mentioned it, But I’d like to tell yer ’fore I go. Would yer mind lowerin’ them shades, Fall twilight’s awful grey, And that fire’s real cosy with the shades drawd. Well, I guess folks about here think I’ve be’n dret’ful unsociable. You needn’t say ’taint so, ’cause I know diff’rent. And what’s more, it’s true. Well, the reason is I’ve be’n scared o’ my life. Scared ev’ry minit o’ th’ time, fer eight year. Eight mortal year it is, come next June. It was on the eighteenth of June, Six months after I’d buried my husband That somethin’ happened ter me. Maybe yer’ll mind that afore that I was a cheery body. Hiram was too, Allus liked to ask a neighbor in, And ev’n when he died, Barrin’ low sperrits, I warn’t averse to seein’ nobody. But that eighteenth o’ June changed ev’rythin’. I was doin’ most o’ th’ farmwork myself, With jest a hired boy, Clarence King ’twas,